How to Make Korean Friends in Korea

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If you’re traveling to Korea or living in Korea, you might feel a little lost and alone. What better way to cure your sorrows than to make local Korean friends! If you’re wondering how you can make Korean friends while you’re in Korea, we have a few suggestions 😉

Note for Korea residents: Making friends in Korea is the same anywhere in the world. Most people, just like you, make friends at school, work at the gym, etc.. But if the people around you are only non-Koreans, it might be harder to make local Korean friends. So we suggest being active, and of course friendly. Join a yoga class, a salsa dance group, a scarf knitting interest group, a photography club for taking pictures of cats. Just anything to be in a position to meet people. And of course, it’ll help if you’re friendly too.

But just in case you need a starting point, here are a few suggestions:

TourMateKorea

With Locals by Locals

TourMateKorea is an app to find local Korean friends to have real local experiences with. They’re not professional tour guides, but everyday Korean locals with schools and jobs. With them, you’ll get access to special venues, hear their stories of growing up in the city, get personalized recommendations for what you want to do and make a new friend while you’re at it. Most meetups are one on one experiences, so it’s intimate, and you’ll really get to know true Korean locals.

SeoulMate

SeoulMate is one of the services we highlighted in our 10 Free Things to Get in Seoul post. They are super cool because they offer free tours of Korea’s attractions. And although they’re not professional tour guides, you can think of them as professional hang out buddies. Basically the group will hook you up with Korean college students to tour some of Korea’s awesomest sites. But in addition to tours, these people also offer their oh so valuable friendship. They’re young, outgoing and friendly. You’ll like them so much that you might even want to go to one of their reunion parties! 😀

Friends in Korea

Checkout friendsinkorea.comif you want language exchange, partying, speed dating and unicorns. Their hang outs range from eating food and drinking coffee to drinking beer and going clubbing. They’ll have events that are setup for group discounts (i.e. free entrance to clubs, all you can drink beer, etc.). And although this group is geared more towards foreigners that reside in Korea, it’s still a great way for visitors to meet some Korean friends too. And to ride unicorns.

Korean Interest Groups

Many Korean people find friends in interest groups called 모임 (moim) or 동호회 (donghohoe) and so these groups are perfect for finding real Korean locals. On top of that, these are interest groups with activities that range from hiking, bowling, wine tasting, biking and anything else you can think of. So it’s perfect for making friends with the most local of Koreans while enjoying your favorite activities! Most of these can be found with simple searches on Daum.net or Naver.com (e.g. 서울볼링동호회 – Seoul bowling interest group). If your Korean isn’t the best, ask a friend to help you find a good one.

Obviously these aren’t the only ways to make Korean friends. There are tons of meetup groups out there with lots of Koreans. If you know of any, feel free to add to the list in the comments below!

Keith Kim is a Korean-American who has been living in Korea for almost a decade. Being in a unique position as both a Korean and a non-Korean, he's put all his experience and knowledge for surviving in Korea in Survival Korean . Read it to learn how you can survive in Korea.
Follow him on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

94 Comments

Hi I’m Naomie! Going to Seoul at the end of May. I speak no Korean unfortunately but would love to make Korean friends and hang out. Male or female is OK as long as you’re not creepy lol. Please email me if you would like to hang out ☺

hi Naomi, I am Jin and I am native Korean. I would love to hang out with you, so if you are interested my email is jeongho.k@me.com and my kakaotalk id is gohogogo. i am not creepy at all just a normal person.

Hello everyone
I am Jas (19 yrs) female and I arrived at Seoul few days ago. But my korean isn’t good and I don’t have any korean friends to talk to. So is there any korean who can hang out with me and help me with the language? Thankyou so much. My email is jasudasunwar67@gmail.com

hey guys, I am Jin and I am native Korean. I would love to hang out with you, so if you are interested my email is jeongho.k@me.com and my kakaotalk id is gohogogo. i am not creepy at all just a normal person.

Hello everyone.
I am from Romania, I plan to travel to Seoul next year to visit the city and who knows to make friends.
Feel free to write me: alina.negoescu123@gmail.com
I admire coreean people for originality and I like coreean movies and some k-pop bands.
Have a nice evening!

Hi I am a 37 year old adoptee with serious health issues returning to Seoul to search for my birth family. I want to do some healing with spas and find a mudang. I would love to learn about original culture as well and would love to have a friend. I will be there for the month of September.

Hi everyone! My name is Fatin. I’ll be going to Seoul soon & sadly, I’m having hard time learning Korean language. Hence, I couldn’t speak Korean. Otherwise, I’m so hyped for my trip and up to making new friends to learn more about Korea!

Hello,
I’m Yujin (25yo) from Toronto. Anyone travelling to Seoul late October? Or a local looking for a friend?
I can speak a bit of Korean but would love a travel buddy to check out the city with; specifically night market shopping/bars/clubbing or just eat.
Please email me if you’re interested!